Tresa Randall

Associate Professor of Dance: History, Modern, Ballet, Choreography

Office Hours:

Mon:By appointment

Tue:By appointment

Wed:By appointment

Thur:By appointment

Fri:By appointment

Tresa Randall

Associate Professor of Dance: History, Modern, Ballet, Choreography

Dr. Tresa Randall, Ph.D. has an integrated studio and academic role in the School of Dance, teaching dance history and critical viewing/writing about dance as well as studio courses such as modern dance technique, composition, ballet, and yoga. She designed the course Dance, Gender and Sexuality: Historical Perspectives, which is cross-listed with Women's and Gender Studies, as well as a course on the history, theory, and practice of yoga.

A dance studies scholar, Dr. Randall has presented her research nationally and internationally at conferences of the Congress on Research in Dance (CORD), Society of Dance History Scholars (SDHS), American Studies Association, and National Dance Education Organization. Her research interests are twentieth-century dance history, European and American modernism, German dance studies, and critical race and gender studies. Her writing has been published in Dance Research Journal, Theatre Journal, Jahrbuch für Tanzforschung (Annual of Dance Research, Germany), Journal of Dance Education and the edited book New German Dance Studies.
Dr. Randall served on the CORD Editorial Board as Proceedings Editor from 2007 – 2010, editing three Proceedings published by the University of Illinois Press. In this post, she had the opportunity to work with established and emerging scholars from all over the world. She served on the Ohio Arts Council Panel in 2009, adjudicating the Individual Excellence awards in arts criticism (art, dance, film, and music).

As a performer and choreographer, Dr. Randall worked with the Bill Evans Contemporary Dance Company, Santa Fe Opera, Mark DeGarmo and Dancers, Rochester City Ballet, Dancing One Soul collective, Ann Vachon, and others. She performed historical reconstructions of works by modern dance icons Doris Humphrey, May O'Donnell and José Limón.

In her dance history courses, Dr. Randall makes innovative use of the Alwin Nikolais and Murray Louis Dance Collection, an archive of primary sources for modern dance. She served as the rehearsal director for Alwin Nikolais' masterwork Noumenon, performed by OU School of Dance students in 2009 and 2010 (See video documentary by OHIO Today: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmnIZrg_1iQ).
Dr. Randall studied classical yoga, pranayama, and yoga theory with world-renowned teacher TKV Desikachar in Chennai, India as part of the Colgate University India Study Group.

Selected Publications:

Randall, Tresa. "Hanya Holm and an American Tanzgemeinschaft." New German Dance Studies. Edited by Susan Manning and Lucia Ruprecht. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2012. http://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/59sxb3yg9780252036767.html.

"Teaching Dancers to Think Historically: Multidisciplinarity in Dance History Pedagogy." Paper presented at the Congress on Research in Dance Special Conference, "Global Perspectives on Dance Pedagogy: Research and Practice," De Montfort University, Leicester, UK, June 2009.

"Dance at the Crossroads: Constructing American Dance." Paper presented at the 2008 American Studies Association Conference, "Integrative American Studies at the Crossroads," Albuquerque, NM, October 2008.

"Migration, Community, and Belonging: Hanya Holm." Paper presented at the 2007 Congress on Research in Dance (CORD) Conference, "Choreographies of Migration," at Barnard College, New York, NY, November 2007.

"Being With It: Dance Theory and Cultural Transfer in the Work of Hanya Holm." Paper presented at the 2007 SDHS/CORD conference, "Re-Thinking Practice and Theory," at the Centre National de la Danse, Pantin, France, June 2007.

As Editor

Randall, Tresa, editor. Global Perspectives on Dance Pedagogy: Research and Practice. Proceedings of the Congress on Research in Dance Special Conference, De Montfort University, Leicester, UK, June 2009. University of Illinois Press, 2009. 361 pp.